


voids to fill

by rockthecliche



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockthecliche/pseuds/rockthecliche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s just one simple voice but to Kame, it means so, so much more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	voids to fill

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Josie for the first cycle of JE Otherworlds.

"I don't need help. Just so you know."

"Mmhmm."

"I mean. The only reason why I'm calling is because my friend, he's such a tool, he thinks that I'm too high-strung about small stuff, but I'm not. I'm perfectly okay, it’s just that everyone else isn't paying attention to the world around them. I told him that, too, but he just stared at me like I was some sort of weird person. But I'm not weird. Okay? I'm really not weird."

"All right."

"And you know what else he said to me? That if I kept living life so high-strung all the time, I'll have a heart attack!"

"Really now?"

"Yeah!"

"Did you say anything back?"

"...maybe."

"Like?"

"Like I'd rather have a heart attack than deal with his big nose."

"...I think you'll find that we'll get along really well."

 

Forty minutes later, Kame tossed the phone onto the sofa, plopping down next to it right after. He thought about the past forty minutes, about this person he had just spilled his life story to, and while said other person certainly didn't sound like he gave a damn about the trials and tribulations of being Kamenashi Kazuya, he had to (begrudgingly) admit that it felt good to get it all out.

Kame flung an arm over his eyes and sighed. He hated it when Nakamaru was right.

 

 

"I didn't think you'd call again."

Kame didn't think he'd call again, either, but he wasn't about to let the other know that. "You don't sound too happy to hear from me," he said instead, easily deflecting the real issue.

"Hmmm." The voice sounded nonchalant at best. "I just sound this way all the time."

"Disinterested?"

"Generally."

"How do you give advice to people, then?"

The other man sighed. "I said I _sounded_ this way, not that I _was_." A pause. "But I am, sometimes. Disinterested. But it's not lunchtime and I'm in a good mood, so talk away!"

Kame chuckled instead. "You're pretty bad at this."

"Lucky for me, there wasn't a qualifying exam before they hired me."

 

 

After two months of talking to his mysterious counselor once a week, Kame realized that maybe this _was_ helping a little, if the way his bath towels were now _not_ coordinated and simply piled into the linen closet, and the only reason why he even realized _that_ was because Nakamaru had spent approximately three minutes gawking at the linen closet before Kame brushed past him and slammed the door shut as he muttered under his breath about how he could have lightened up at any time about the damn towels, this was just coincidence.

Besides, the sock drawer was still arranged by color.

“I thought you weren’t going to call that place to begin with,” Nakamaru commented.

Kame shrugged, holding the wooden spoon out for Nakamaru to help him test. “I wasn’t. But you seemed to think it was a good idea...” He carefully watched Nakamaru’s face for telltale signs of taste, and the scrunched up nose meant that it was a little too salty.

“Besides,” Kame went on as he pondered what else to put in the stew to balance the flavors out, “I know I have...issues, sometimes.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m making you change,” Nakamaru said, hesitantly, getting plates and setting the table as per their usual dinner routine.

Kame actually laughed at that. “In all the years you’ve known me, have I ever let you get away with trying to make me do _anything_? Why would I start now?”

 

 

“I had this really weird phase growing up. I thought in order to be cool, I had to be _cold_. Aloof and completely serious business. But my friends, they were anything but cool, and I would constantly get annoyed because they weren’t helping my image, but I was actually just as uncool as them. I guess I really, _really_ didn’t want to be uncool.”

“Is that why you played baseball?”

Kame paused. “No...no. I still love baseball.”

“But it would have boosted your reputation quite a bit.”

“...I guess it couldn’t have hurt it,” Kame responded. He coughed and cleared his throat. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Any weird phases?”

“Oh, yeah, tons.”

“Weirder than mine?”

“Yours is pretty par for the course.”

“Just enlighten me.”

A pause. “I pretended I could see fairies for a little bit.”

Kame blinked; that certainly hadn’t been what he was expecting. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

He laughed. “Wow. You win.”

 

 

Nakamaru opened the door to the apartment and toed his shoes off, calling out a half-hearted _tadaima_. He wasn’t expecting a response, though he did get one in the form of a hasty, “There’s curry in the kitchen!”, and so he traipsed further into the apartment, eager to feed himself.

It was Thursday, and Thursday was Kame’s ‘phone-a-friend’ day.

Maybe that was a little harsh. Nakamaru had long since reconciled with the fact that if there was anyone to blame for Kame’s sudden interest in another human being, it was Nakamaru himself, and it was _okay_ , it really was. Kame hadn’t changed much otherwise; the most notable change Nakamaru could think of off the top of his head was that now, he could leave drinks on the coffee table without a coaster and Kame would barely notice -- and boy, had he noticed before. As the microwave hummed to life, plate of curry rotating in its infrared rays, Nakamaru gazed into the living room. Kame was lounging on the sofa, phone against his ear, chattering away about school and movies and music and ramune flavors and all other things that made up life. 

It felt a little unfair.

Properly fed, Nakamaru yawned and, after a brief internal debate as he washed his dishes, walked over to where Kame was. He sat next to him, squishing him against one side of the sofa, and at Kame’s squawk of indignation, scooted over, but decided to lay down, head on Kame’s thigh.

“-- I’ve got to go, my other half is home,” Kame said into the phone. After a quick _goodbye_ , Kame placed the phone back into its cradle and finally looked down at Nakamaru, who was trying to pretend he was taking a nap. Admittedly, he was a really bad actor. “I know you’re awake.” Nakamaru felt a light smack on his forehead, then the low rumble of Kame chuckling a little. “Good evening, Nakamaru-san.”

“Good evening, Kamenashi-san,” Nakamaru played along. “What did you do today?”

“Nothing much. Laundry, re-alphabetized the DVD collection, cooked. How was work?” Kame asked, although it was a miracle Nakamaru even heard. Kame was running fingers through his hair, and he knew damn well how it lulled him into his happy place.

“Same as every day. You didn’t go grocery shopping?”

He asked this question every week, and every week he got the same response. Nakamaru knew it made Kame uncomfortable; he didn’t need to be able to read body language in order to tell. The way Kame’s brows furrowed for a split second gave it more than away. But Nakamaru held out hope that one day, maybe the answer would change.

“...no, I didn’t get a chance to.”

Oh well. Maybe next week.

 

 

“So why are you a hermit?”

It was the one question Kame wished the man wouldn’t ask, but there was no way around it and this Kame knew. He never brought up activities that had to be done outside and he always feigned familiarity when a new movie was mentioned; it wouldn’t take a genius to see through his act. If anything, he was surprised they let him carry on for this long.

“I’m...not really a hermit. I just don’t like going outside,” Kame began, uncomfortable. “There are germs and...and...”

“People?”

“Yes!” No, wait, _damn._ “No, that’s not what I meant, _honest_.”

All he heard was nothing so he figured that was a cue to go on, but to go on would be the _truth_ , and no one knew that but Nakamaru. And he opened his mouth to speak, to say _something_ to fill the dreadful silence, but he closed it a few seconds later, his mind making its decision to keep it secret for just a while longer.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

“I’m sorry.” And Kame really did mean it.

 

 

There should be no reason to feel sad but Kame did, and he hated the feeling of self-doubt that pooled in his stomach. Perhaps ‘sad’ was the wrong word, though, and something like _disappointment_ was much more apt. And not in anyone else...just himself.

For the first time since his gradual ascension into his current lifestyle, he felt lonely. He sat back, clutching a pillow to his chest and placed the phone back on its cradle; he heaved a sigh and resigned himself to waiting for Nakamaru to get home.

 

 

“So why haven’t you told me what your name is yet?”

There was a distinct pause, an _awkward_ one, and Kame can’t quite understand why. It seemed like a reasonable question, considering it had already been seven months since his first fated call.

“It’s frowned upon.” Before Kame could ask why, the other went on. “I’m only here for you to talk to. Just like this.”

“Oh.” And it was Kame’s turn to fall silent, wondering what to say next and coming up with nothing; the only other person whom he felt at all close to couldn’t even tell him his name. That, for lack of a better term, sucked.

“But you can tell me yours.”

“Mine?”

“Yeah.”

Why hadn’t he thought of this earlier?

“...it’s Kamenashi. But uh, my nickname’s ‘Kame’, so you can call me that.”

“Then, Kame-san, it’s nice to meet you.”

Kame laughed. “Nice to meet you, too.”

 

 

The person on the phone was not the person Kame was used to. There was no smooth baritone to greet him and ask him how his day was. There was nothing _familiar_ about this, no chuckles covered up with deadpan words, nothing reminiscent of the man that would listen to him ramble on for hours.

_That man was gone_ , replaced with a perky, optimistic, cheery girl whose sunshine-y demeanor practically clawed its way through the phone and onto his skin, making it crawl and making him shiver.

Kame slammed the phone down.

In the kitchen, Nakamaru puzzled over the phone bills for the past few months, wondering why they seemed a lot less than what he had been expecting to pay.

 

 

A couple months later, when Nakamaru asked Kame if he went grocery shopping, Kame laughed and replied with a firm _yes_. And when Nakamaru decided to go for the gold and asked Kame to the movies a week after _that_ , Kame said yes.

“What happened to you?” Nakamaru joked over dinner -- not at home, but at a ramen joint in the neighborhood.

Kame smiled a little secretively. “I think you mean _who_ happened to me.”

“Pity you never learned what his name was,” Nakamaru said. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll meet the man from the phone one day.”

Somewhere in the deep recesses of Kame’s mind was a faint tingling of recognition, of absolute knowing, of momentary individualized life, and the same voice from the phone floated to the forefront of his consciousness. It chuckled.

_”Maybe.”_

And Kame merely smiled.


End file.
